Today’s Workout column: Wood chop focuses on midsection

Friday

Our creative and inventive at home workouts have grown from temporary to the new normal!

And that’s OK.

Let’s talk midsection. The weather is great and more of us are getting outside these days. And, after satisfying our boredom with the stay at home snacks, a core workout should be our go-to fitness.

Our move today is a wood chop with a medicine ball. This exercise is focusing on your midsection, obliques and lower back. You will also feel this exercise in your shoulders and lower body.

If you do not have a weighted medicine ball, handweights, water bottles or even canned goods will work just as well.

Begin this exercise by holding your medicine ball in both hands, rolling your shoulders back and down, and lifting your chest. Engage your midsection, and place your feet in a wide stance, just outside the hips.

Twist in the midsection and extend your weight up and out, over your left shoulder.

Once you reach your deepest contraction, reverse this movement back to the start by extending and twisting back up toward your left shoulder. Continue this angled chopping motion for at least 10 repetitions on the same side.

Taking a short break, shift your weight and extend your arms over the opposite shoulder. Continue this same wood chopping motion in the opposite direction.

Give yourself at least three sets on each side.

If you feel you cannot continue this motion with added weight, simply drop the weights, grasp your hands together and perform the movement empty-handed.

This exercise is great to add into any other abdominal routine, or combine it with a total body workout.

After a few sets of this wood chop exercise, you will be ready to throw on your bikini and get outdoors.

Marlo Alleva, an instructor at Gold’s Gym and group fitness coordinator at Fontaine-Gills YMCA in Lakeland, Florida, can be reached at faluvzpa@msn.com.

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